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[Book]: Rhymes With

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  • FrozenzenFrozenzen Registered User regular
    I really liked children of ruin. It's similar to time, but was different enough for me.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    edited July 2020
    The Essex Serpent was excellent, first class stuff. A modern attempt at a Victorian novel that feels vibrant and alive and entirely real.

    Bogart on
  • KaputaKaputa Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    I found a book in my shelves that I don't remember ever acquiring - "The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages" by Robert S. Lopez, thought "huh, that sounds interesting" and read it. It was interesting! Not knowing a ton about economic history, I've only associated Europe's economy in that era with manorial estates/localized agriculture and such, and was unaware of the degree of development of commerce from ~950-1350. The author describes the growth of Italian city states and their lesser mirror image in and around the Jutland Peninsula (he refers to the North/Baltic Seas as the "Northern Mediterranean"), the trade networks and techniques they develop, and the resulting changes in social structure in these areas. Toward the end he spends some time on the development of artisan guilds and early textile manufacturing in its relation to commerce, during what he refers to as a "pre-industrial rise." I found those sections particularly fascinating; you can see a prelude to some of the class conflicts that will spread across Europe hundreds of years later. I'm thankful to whatever magical faerie placed this book in my house, since I doubt I'd ever have come across it otherwise.

    My girlfriend saw me reading it and on a whim bought me a short book called "The History of Economics in its Relation to Social Development," by W. Stark, which is also a pretty fascinating read. The author's basic thesis is that the progression of economic theory - from mercantilism to the physiocrats and classical economists, toward Marx and on to the neo-classical school, is not a progression of less correct to more correct so much as progression of systems which mirror their social and economic reality. As economic life changes over time, the theories become outdated and no longer apply to reality, so new theoretical frameworks arise to comprehend the new conditions. It's from 1944, so there's the possibility of some outdated ideas or information, but I think it's worth reading if you're into that kind of thing.

    Kaputa on
  • PailryderPailryder Registered User regular
    In the off chance someone lurking didn't know Jim Butcher is back, his new book Peace Talks drops on the 15th of July.

  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    In the off chance someone lurking didn't know Jim Butcher is back, his new book Peace Talks drops on the 15th of July.

    By "back" Pailryder means that their second new book comes out two and a half months after that. It's been six years since the last Dresden Files book.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • SummaryJudgmentSummaryJudgment Grab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front door Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    In the off chance someone lurking didn't know Jim Butcher is back, his new book Peace Talks drops on the 15th of July.

    By "back" Pailryder means that their second new book comes out two and a half months after that. It's been six years since the last Dresden Files book.

    now I'm just confused

    Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Pailryder wrote: »
    In the off chance someone lurking didn't know Jim Butcher is back, his new book Peace Talks drops on the 15th of July.

    By "back" Pailryder means that their second new book comes out two and a half months after that. It's been six years since the last Dresden Files book.

    now I'm just confused

    He's going from 0 to 60. Butcher was a really prolific author before things in his life just went sideways. It seems he has gotten things sorted out.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • VanguardVanguard But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    You’re supposed to think “wow, that Kafka. He’s too smart for me!”

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • VanguardVanguard But now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Yes Dan - the deep allegory of probably the most insecure male writer in the 20th century is that it's a story about how smart they are

    You really showed him

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    Brody wrote: »
    OremLK wrote: »
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    I really enjoyed the First Law trilogy

    until the end

    I don't need a book to have a satisfying, happy ending for everyone

    But I do need it to have an ending

    It was also just too cynical for my mindset these days. I don't have a problem with tragic endings if they have a point, but my memory of it (it's been awhile since I read it) was it was that kind of nihilistic "everything sucks. Well... bye." Kind of ending. Which is absolutely my least favorite thing.

    Also, I feel like he tried so hard to make character counter to the typical tropes that he just ended up making equally 1 dimensional characters, just in one-off molds.

    That's the central problem with the trilogy. He's trying very hard to subvert everything, and it becomes this mess of grimdark and ultimately unsatisfying reveals ("Wow. I totally didn't peg that that asshole was actually a bad 'un").

    What the following books do is to tweak this approach by abandoning the fantasy archetypes. They are more "Realistic European history with a fantasy veneer", which allows him to work with a greater range of characters and create a tone that's more grounded and less intentionally grimdark.

    He tried so hard to subvert everything he subverted the very concept of "endings"
    Ferro doesn't get an ending, she fucks off to the desert to get revenge again, no resolution

    Logen doesn't remain King, he jumps out of a window, no resolution

    West is dying (?), but he....doesn't, and also doesn't get better no resolution

    Jezal keeps trying to act like he's growing, but when given the chance he ALMOST stands up to Bayaz and his "wife", very minor resolution

    Bayaz remains somewhat evil, fucks off somewhere, no resolution

    A plague is ravaging the city, but do we learn ANYTHING about it, or do anything to stop it? No

    The only ones who actually get ANY kind of ending are Glokta and Ardee

    An extremely frustrating ending to what I thought was a really good trilogy up to then

    It's not accidental. He's not trying to be so grimdark it hurts or something. The point is to subvert the basic structure of the fantasy novel. Or really a lot of types of novels. Not in terms of plot elements, but in terms of it's I guess you'd say catharsis.
    What the trilogy does is deny the idea that our characters actions are important and that their stories must necessarily be meaningful to either themselves or others.

    There's a (somehow 20 years old) bit of writing from another fantasy author (R Scott Bakker) about the appeal of the fantasy genre wherein he describes it as giving us something we crave, which is the certainty of of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world. The core idea of the standard fantasy novel (and others, but we're talking just fantasy here), deeper then just the plot elements, is that idea of the protagonist doing something that matters in a fundamental way. There's a Bad Thing of some sort and our heroes are Important People who must go on a journey to solve that problem and through that process they also achieve personal growth.

    The entire point of the structure of the trilogy is to upend that core idea. The great conflict of the novel is not good vs evil, but a petty squabble between powers that view the actual people we care about as irrelevant. The actions of our protagonists are ultimately kind of meaningless in the faces of the larger forces at play. The importance attributed to them based on this or that quality is a lie. The personal growth they experience is fleeting and ultimately they return home only to repeat the same patterns of behaviour as before. The quest for truth or to save the world or whatever they go on ultimately go nowhere or don't matter. The series continually teases ideas and plotlines and such that feel like they should mean something and be part of some greater pattern or purpose and then reveals that there's nothing there. The world doesn't have greater meaning or purpose.

    You can see a lot of this fairly explicitly in the 2nd book, who's one plot at least is structured very conventionally as a "fantasy journey to save the world" where our heroes grow as people and grow together. And then in the end there's fucking nothing there and the whole thing falls apart. It's not just a twist. We are actively denied the idea that the journey and the ways in which they grew during it mattered.

    The big trick the entire series pulls is that it makes you think it's a story set in a fantasy world where things have meaning but then it upends this by revealing it as a "modern" world where there is no greater meaning to anything. The good and bad suffer alike, at random. The idea of the journey that changes and betters you is simply a matter of chance and circumstances. Great deeds go unrewarded and bad ones unpunished. And in the end there is no great struggle of good vs evil and everything is a struggle between large essentially amoral powers in who's wake we are all just blown about. The only characters that one might say achieve real growth or change throughout the series (Glokta and Jezal) are simply beaten back into place.

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    Brody wrote: »
    OremLK wrote: »
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    I really enjoyed the First Law trilogy

    until the end

    I don't need a book to have a satisfying, happy ending for everyone

    But I do need it to have an ending

    It was also just too cynical for my mindset these days. I don't have a problem with tragic endings if they have a point, but my memory of it (it's been awhile since I read it) was it was that kind of nihilistic "everything sucks. Well... bye." Kind of ending. Which is absolutely my least favorite thing.

    Also, I feel like he tried so hard to make character counter to the typical tropes that he just ended up making equally 1 dimensional characters, just in one-off molds.

    That's the central problem with the trilogy. He's trying very hard to subvert everything, and it becomes this mess of grimdark and ultimately unsatisfying reveals ("Wow. I totally didn't peg that that asshole was actually a bad 'un").

    What the following books do is to tweak this approach by abandoning the fantasy archetypes. They are more "Realistic European history with a fantasy veneer", which allows him to work with a greater range of characters and create a tone that's more grounded and less intentionally grimdark.

    He tried so hard to subvert everything he subverted the very concept of "endings"
    Ferro doesn't get an ending, she fucks off to the desert to get revenge again, no resolution

    Logen doesn't remain King, he jumps out of a window, no resolution

    West is dying (?), but he....doesn't, and also doesn't get better no resolution

    Jezal keeps trying to act like he's growing, but when given the chance he ALMOST stands up to Bayaz and his "wife", very minor resolution

    Bayaz remains somewhat evil, fucks off somewhere, no resolution

    A plague is ravaging the city, but do we learn ANYTHING about it, or do anything to stop it? No

    The only ones who actually get ANY kind of ending are Glokta and Ardee

    An extremely frustrating ending to what I thought was a really good trilogy up to then

    It's not accidental. He's not trying to be so grimdark it hurts or something. The point is to subvert the basic structure of the fantasy novel. Or really a lot of types of novels. Not in terms of plot elements, but in terms of it's I guess you'd say catharsis.
    What the trilogy does is deny the idea that our characters actions are important and that their stories must necessarily be meaningful to either themselves or others.

    There's a (somehow 20 years old) bit of writing from another fantasy author (R Scott Bakker) about the appeal of the fantasy genre wherein he describes it as giving us something we crave, which is the certainty of of our meaningfulness in a meaningful world. The core idea of the standard fantasy novel (and others, but we're talking just fantasy here), deeper then just the plot elements, is that idea of the protagonist doing something that matters in a fundamental way. There's a Bad Thing of some sort and our heroes are Important People who must go on a journey to solve that problem and through that process they also achieve personal growth.

    The entire point of the structure of the trilogy is to upend that core idea. The great conflict of the novel is not good vs evil, but a petty squabble between powers that view the actual people we care about as irrelevant. The actions of our protagonists are ultimately kind of meaningless in the faces of the larger forces at play. The importance attributed to them based on this or that quality is a lie. The personal growth they experience is fleeting and ultimately they return home only to repeat the same patterns of behaviour as before. The quest for truth or to save the world or whatever they go on ultimately go nowhere or don't matter. The series continually teases ideas and plotlines and such that feel like they should mean something and be part of some greater pattern or purpose and then reveals that there's nothing there. The world doesn't have greater meaning or purpose.

    You can see a lot of this fairly explicitly in the 2nd book, who's one plot at least is structured very conventionally as a "fantasy journey to save the world" where our heroes grow as people and grow together. And then in the end there's fucking nothing there and the whole thing falls apart. It's not just a twist. We are actively denied the idea that the journey and the ways in which they grew during it mattered.

    The big trick the entire series pulls is that it makes you think it's a story set in a fantasy world where things have meaning but then it upends this by revealing it as a "modern" world where there is no greater meaning to anything. The good and bad suffer alike, at random. The idea of the journey that changes and betters you is simply a matter of chance and circumstances. Great deeds go unrewarded and bad ones unpunished. And in the end there is no great struggle of good vs evil and everything is a struggle between large essentially amoral powers in who's wake we are all just blown about. The only characters that one might say achieve real growth or change throughout the series (Glokta and Jezal) are simply beaten back into place.

    I guess that's my issue, to a degree, it reminds me a lot of the French Existentialist book I had the read for school, The Stranger. Just, ultimately none of mattered, and that's fine if that was your intent, it's just not something I generally enjoy sinking energy into. If I really like the characters, and I finish the novel with a deep feeling of empathy for their failed endeavors, that would be something, but it all just felt so meh.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Both Iain Banks and China Miéville have written stuff on that. I wonder if both of them being a wee bit leftist has an influence. (China Miéville is an academic Marxist.)

    A Banks quote, from his last interview before his death:
    If you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes.

    And here's a China Miéville interview:
    BLVR: You tend to leave your villains unpunished and more or less intact at the end of your narratives.

    CM: The whole good-versus-bad morality thing, you have to be very careful or else you end up sounding incredibly trite. People have criticized me for being too morally simplistic and for depicting the government as wholly evil and my goodies as wholly good. I don’t think it’s fair to say that my goodies are wholly good. As for the government being wholly evil, I can see that there’s maybe a sort of pantomime element to some of the government in, say, Perdido Street Station. I don’t think it’s the case with The Scar or Iron Council. Particularly with the figure of Weather Wrightby, but also with the figure of the Lovers in The Scar, there’s an attempt to say this is not about this person being a bastard, this is about this person being a representation of social forces that for the purposes of this book represent the enemy of the protagonist. What I don’t necessarily do is spend a long time getting into their psychology, and that’s partly because the book is from the protagonists’ opposing point of view. It is a book about the depiction of revolutionary fervor, and therefore the book relates to Weather Wrightby and the Mayor as enemies because so do the protagonists. It doesn’t mean that they are snarling, Dickensian pantomime villains. But it’s also the case, as you say, that they don’t necessarily get punished any more than the good get rewarded. Nor necessarily do they get rewarded. The abstract schema of morality fits very imperfectly over what I think of as a kind of concrete morality of political and social circumstances.

    In all the books, there is some kind of moral or political resolution, but it always comes at a cost. The story is not about the good getting their rewards and the bad getting punished. The story is about something different from that. I remember someone saying once that they really hated my books because they weren’t “inspiring,” but I just can’t get with this idea that literature is a twelve-step program. If someone wants to read a book to feel better, and the way they want to feel better is to see that the good people get rewarded and the bad people get punished, that’s fine, but essentially what they want then is a fairy tale. I don’t mean this in really kind of a denigrating fashion, but I don’t think that’s what fiction should necessarily be about. This is in part my reaction against a tendency that has been reasonably strong in fantasy, which is precisely the attempt to depict narratives like fairy tales. Abstract morality has had a fairly strong position in genre fantasy, and so there is still a certain necessity to react against that, and to say that things don’t all necessarily work out well, and the attempt to create a more realistic, more nuanced world is precisely manifested in a world in which you can’t take nice moral lessens for granted.

  • Lord_AsmodeusLord_Asmodeus goeticSobriquet: Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered User regular
    has anyone here read the Federation Trilogy by Tony Harmsworth? I have a question that I can't find an answer to online.

    Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Bookworm, by Lucy Mangan. A memoir of and meditation about childhood reading. Interesting, not least for the insight into what girls were reading while I was ploughing through fighting fantasy gamebooks, Asterix books and various fantasy series.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Fifty pages into M John Harrison's Light, which is splendid and witty and strange.

  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Light was very good and very strange and stylised. The only things I can compare it to are Moorcock’s weirder stuff and John Clute’s Appleseed.

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Twelve Nights at Rotter House by JW Ocker was a pretty decent haunted house book that left me feeling surprisingly bleak. I'm not sure how well the huge-horror-nerd style will play for someone who is not, themselves, a huge horror nerd, though.

    Read Adrift on the Sea of Rains based on...Bogart?'s recommendation in here. It was weird. I enjoyed all of it except for the very ending. That bit made sense but didn't feel right when I read it. I dunno. Also the lack of quotation marks bothered me more than I thought it would.

    Currently most of the way through A Memory Called Empire by Martine. I like it but it's weird. A number of aspects of the setting don't make sense to me. But it's a fun story and well written so I'll give them a pass. Unless the last bit turns hard to the south I'll try the next one.

    Gotta pick between the new Dresden and the 3rd Emperox book for what to cram in before Harrow the Ninth comes out...

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    RM Lamming’s In The Dark, about a thoroughly unpleasant old recluse and his passive-aggressive housekeeper. Very good indeed.

    Next up is Gene Wolfe’s very last novel, Interlibrary Loan, published posthumously.

  • credeikicredeiki Registered User regular
    I finished A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. To be honest, I thought all the books by Joyce were more or less the same thing and that it would be a stylistically insane narrative that coalesces into a story and requires like a second companion book. ...turns out that’s just Ulysses...

    Portrait is instead what it says on the cover—an impressionistic portrait of this guy (semi autobiographical) in some early stages of his life, when he’s 11 and 16 and maybe 19. It’s all written very in-the-moment feeling, very from the perspective of a young person, and some of the writing is very beautiful—great sentences. Some of the writing is more lengthy and tedious, though. It all just sort of accretes and doesn’t quite build to anything other than this layered and complex impression. There is an arc there about his Catholicism, and another about Irish identity, and one about art, too. It was interesting and I’m glad I read it, but apart from the prettiness of the sentences and the novelty of the topics, I didn't particularly enjoy it.

    Steam, LoL: credeiki
  • TenzytileTenzytile Registered User regular
    Of the three Joyce books I've read (Dubliners, Portrait, Ulysses), I think Portrait is probably the weakest; the least conceptual, the least structured. Caught in between the poetic realism of Dubliners and the explosive modernism of Ulysses. And yeah, it definitely finds some distinct feelings with its use of language, and touches on some interesting ideas, but I totally agree that it just sort of passes without finding a recognizable shape or purpose.

    I also have to say that the other two books are helped enormously by how they end; they're unforgettably moving in their final passages. I don't even remember how Portrait ends. I know he writes some poetry and then chills uncomfortably with his dad for a bit? But yeah, in the same boat with you. It's good, but it sort of moved past me as I read it.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    So, what happens when a writer of historical novels isn't careful about their research on Google?

    Hilarity is what happens:



    At least he's being a good sport about it:

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    This is a friendly reminder to fellow pre-orderers that Harrow the Ninth is released in full tomorrow, August the 4th.

    Kana on
    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    Boyne is a goose. Aggressively transphobic history and now he fucks up a Google search and 'serious literature' press is up on his fucking nob about it.

    vm8gvf5p7gqi.jpg
    Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
  • AntoshkaAntoshka Miauen Oil Change LazarusRegistered User regular
    Kana wrote: »
    This is a friendly reminder to fellow pre-orderers that Harrow the Ninth is released in full tomorrow, August the 4th.

    But it's the fourth today! It's after midday. Why does Amazon not respect the time zone correctly

    n57PM0C.jpg
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    Antoshka wrote: »
    Kana wrote: »
    This is a friendly reminder to fellow pre-orderers that Harrow the Ninth is released in full tomorrow, August the 4th.

    But it's the fourth today! It's after midday. Why does Amazon not respect the time zone correctly

    Because the center of the universe is Seattle, WA. It is known.

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    I just started Gideon this week, I didn't realize Harrow wasn't out yet. I thought the book coming out was the final book and I was excited to be starting a series that was already finished for once =p.
    Assuming it's going to be a trilogy, anyway.

    Enjoying the book thus far, though I am barely into it.

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    I was just coming to say

    If you're thinking about reading Harrow, but you only read Gideon a single time a while ago

    I would rather strongly recommend re-reading Gideon first before launching into Harrow

    Cuz you're really gonna need to remember exactly who everyone was, and the unreliable narrator is actively going to make it harder on you

    spoilers for about halfway through book 2
    I love this alternate universe style retelling of Book 1
    The folks who existed as just quick monster fodder in book 1 get to instead take center stage. Abigail especially got like 3 lines in book 1 and then died, and now in book 2 she's fantastic and you can totally understand why the baddie had to kill her first.
    Ortus is just like a lame fat guy in book 1 who can't fight and dies offscreen, and now in this version he's great too, and has a great sort of weird sibling relationship with Harrow
    And then we actually get Real Dulcinea and it's kinda hilarious because she's nowhere near as sickly as the baddie in book 1 impersonated her as being.

    Also just in general I really love this book's take on what is basically the warhammer 40k emperor

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    Good to know, I will jump right into Harrow as soon as I'm done!

  • initiatefailureinitiatefailure Registered User regular
    oh hey related. my partner was just like "i have to buy these 3 books for school and they cost too much so I'm angry at them and I'll buy us 2 books to be more happy" and we picked Gideon the Ninth and on a technicality that the box set was less than the price of one of the school books, I convinced her that the broken earth trilogy counted as one as well

  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Listened to the audiobook of Rick Kadrey's The Grand Dark. It was weird. Very dissimilar to his other work. I enjoyed it but the entire novel felt like set-up. Like, it told a story, but it's the kind of story that feels like act 1 of a longer narrative. Considering how many Sandman Slim books there are I guess a sequel would have been inevitable anyway, but still.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • AbsalonAbsalon Lands of Always WinterRegistered User regular
    edited August 2020
    So my 62-year-old mother, who has read some LeGuin, Sanderson, RR Martin and such, now unpromtedly wants to read Gardens of the Moon, doorstop one out of ten in Malazan Book of the Fallen. How in the absolute muppety shirtless fuck do I prepare her?

    Absalon on
  • DevoutlyApatheticDevoutlyApathetic Registered User regular
    Absalon wrote: »
    So my 62-year-old mother, who has read some LeGuin, Sanderson, RR Martin and such, now wants to read Gardens of the Moon, doorstop one out of ten in Malazan Book of the Fallen. How in the absolute muppety shirtless fuck do I prepare her?

    Buy her a better book instead?

    People assure me the series gets better but it starts out really fucking rough. Like maybe worse than some of the D&D licensed fiction for how obviously somebody just wrote out what happened in their D&D game.

    Nod. Get treat. PSN: Quippish
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    Absalon wrote: »
    So my 62-year-old mother, who has read some LeGuin, Sanderson, RR Martin and such, now wants to read Gardens of the Moon, doorstop one out of ten in Malazan Book of the Fallen. How in the absolute muppety shirtless fuck do I prepare her?

    Buy her a better book instead?

    People assure me the series gets better but it starts out really fucking rough. Like maybe worse than some of the D&D licensed fiction for how obviously somebody just wrote out what happened in their D&D game.

    I mean, that is what the Malazan series is.

    I liked it quite a bit, though. I don't think it requires any particular preparation beyond being ready to have no idea what's happening for the first hundred pages or so since no particular efforts are made toward exposition. I think I made it through almost the entire series before having any clear idea of what the fuck Moon's Spawn was supposed to look like.

    Of the various doorstop fantasy series I think Malazan may be my overall favorite.

    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • AbsalonAbsalon Lands of Always WinterRegistered User regular
    Absalon wrote: »
    So my 62-year-old mother, who has read some LeGuin, Sanderson, RR Martin and such, now wants to read Gardens of the Moon, doorstop one out of ten in Malazan Book of the Fallen. How in the absolute muppety shirtless fuck do I prepare her?

    Buy her a better book instead?

    People assure me the series gets better but it starts out really fucking rough. Like maybe worse than some of the D&D licensed fiction for how obviously somebody just wrote out what happened in their D&D game.

    Let the lady catch some scars. This is like if my dad graduated from playing pinball video games to suddenly jumping into E.Ψ.Ǝ: Divine Cybermancy or Pathologic.

  • vamenvamen Registered User regular
    Absalon wrote: »
    So my 62-year-old mother, who has read some LeGuin, Sanderson, RR Martin and such, now wants to read Gardens of the Moon, doorstop one out of ten in Malazan Book of the Fallen. How in the absolute muppety shirtless fuck do I prepare her?

    Buy her a better book instead?

    People assure me the series gets better but it starts out really fucking rough. Like maybe worse than some of the D&D licensed fiction for how obviously somebody just wrote out what happened in their D&D game.

    I mean, that is what the Malazan series is.

    I liked it quite a bit, though. I don't think it requires any particular preparation beyond being ready to have no idea what's happening for the first hundred pages or so since no particular efforts are made toward exposition. I think I made it through almost the entire series before having any clear idea of what the fuck Moon's Spawn was supposed to look like.

    Of the various doorstop fantasy series I think Malazan may be my overall favorite.

    Agreed. I personally loved Gardens of the Moon and how you just got dropped into the middle of so much chaos. I haven't finished the series yet (I'm on Reaper's Gale) but I think Erikson writes some fantastic characters across a large spectrum of personalities. Let me tell you, it's HARD for a book to make me laugh, but he has even written some witty characters that do just that. Specifically Tehol.

    But yea, not sure how to prepare her other than to let her know it's very detailed and she's going to have a LOT of stuff coming at her right away.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited August 2020
    Do deadhouse gates first, then gardens of the moon.

    Gotm is important for some plot elements but also suffers from being the authors first novel and is... not very good... compared to the rest of the series. Its a lot easier to get through if you are already invested in the series and the plot doesn’t really overlap with deadhouse gates until a few books later.

    Jealous Deva on
  • BogartBogart Streetwise Hercules Registered User, Moderator mod
    Interlibrary Loan feels almost unfinished, and the ending rushed, but as always with Wolfe one shouldn’t presume you understood things on a first pass.

    I’m certainly very sad to know I’ll never again be able to pick up a new Gene Wolfe novel. I wish I’d written him a letter to let him know what his books meant to me.

  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    The only preparation Malazan requires is saying, 'hey this is really in depth, far ranging and a lot of the stuff you read won't make sense until later". If she's cool with that then she can settle in for one of the better sprawling epics of modern fantasy.

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  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I've started the Lightbringer series. Or well, I'm on the third book now, and its going through a sequence about the Freeing, and up until now I'm not sure how I really felt Brent Weeks' writing, and I still don't know that I would call it amazing, but this is certainly an engaging piece of writing, that is directly affecting my feels.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

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